War
- Thread starter captainmorgan
- Start date
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
A Million N. Korean Shells, Russians Oppose Ending War (If They Lose Land) & U.S. Deal for Ukraine
printer
Well-Known Member
Oh right, part of the reason I have abandoned the thread.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
A lot of the videos we post are pro Ukrainian, but I do believe they tell it like it is for the most part and are generally reliable sources of information, they have their side, but so do I. In war one must deal with reality and adapt or perish, remaining optimistic is essential to morale and motivation though, but it must be realistic too.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
TRAITOR Trump Reveals TOTAL BETRAYAL, It GOT UGLY
During a recent campaign appearance, Former President Trump doubled-down on his threat to abandon America’s NATO allies. Ken Harbaugh explains the strategic implications of this betrayal.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
China reaching out to the west, a shift in policy, they want to sell EVs and other things for the green energy revolution, so play nice as a global citizen. Putting restrictions on batteries and rare earth exports will backfire, like using trade in oil as a weapon did for Russia.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Foxconn is Taiwanese and does a lot of business in China but have been steadily moving operations to other Asian countries, they assemble Apple products among others. This guy is independent, and it shows, he is probably in Taiwan too! An example of the trouble authoritarian governments make for themselves, some of it an effort to shift assets to friends and family. There is a real financial catastrophe unfolding in the real-estate and banking sectors as China over built based on faulty demographic data and assumptions.
Foxconn’s Boss Defiantly Confronts the CCP: “They Fear Me, Not Vice Versa. I’m Moving Foxconn Now.”
In recent years, as part of an effort to gradually reduce dependency on China, Foxconn has been diversifying its production lines, relocating some of them outside of the country. Last December, international media outlets reported that Apple had urged its suppliers to expedite the establishment of production bases outside of China, notably in India and Vietnam, to decrease reliance on Foxconn's Zhengzhou facility.
With Beijing now pressuring Foxconn, there could be an accelerated exit of the company from China, potentially alarming foreign investors and Taiwanese businesspeople and seriously harming China's domestic economy.
Foxconn’s Boss Defiantly Confronts the CCP: “They Fear Me, Not Vice Versa. I’m Moving Foxconn Now.”
In recent years, as part of an effort to gradually reduce dependency on China, Foxconn has been diversifying its production lines, relocating some of them outside of the country. Last December, international media outlets reported that Apple had urged its suppliers to expedite the establishment of production bases outside of China, notably in India and Vietnam, to decrease reliance on Foxconn's Zhengzhou facility.
With Beijing now pressuring Foxconn, there could be an accelerated exit of the company from China, potentially alarming foreign investors and Taiwanese businesspeople and seriously harming China's domestic economy.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Why would they pay someone who they figured was going to be dead anyway? I mean the kinds of people who do this figure he will be dead before the paperwork is processed anyway, so they just pocket the cash themselves. I can see a profitable business for some government officials and a real incentive to kill as many of their troops as they can submit compensation claims for. Since few of those claims will ever be paid out to the families, most likely kept by corrupt officials, provided the funds were allocated in the first place.
Character counts and you had better make sure those you elect have some and a sense of shame, you also had better make sure your vote counts, there is the rule of law and that nobody is above it.
Character counts and you had better make sure those you elect have some and a sense of shame, you also had better make sure your vote counts, there is the rule of law and that nobody is above it.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
They can try and die and are dying in large numbers attacking. If both sides get a million artillery rounds, whose do you think will do the most damage, if the Russians need to fire 5 or 10 rounds for the same effect? From the reports I've seen it appears to be eating up Russian troops and equipment a lot faster than the Ukrainians.
In a couple of months F16s are due to arrive and republicans are pushing for long range ATACMS, but first they need to come through with basic funding and so far, they are losing badly in the house with a boneheaded scheme. Support for Ukraine splits them the most and only the magats and those trying to appease Trump really oppose it. As Trump goes down and is perhaps disqualified, their position will grow weaker, and Trump and his base of fanatics will be preoccupied with legal matters.
printer
Well-Known Member
And Russia got their 1 M shells from NK and Ukraine is still begging for shells. Which will do the most damage, the shells the Russians have or the shells the Ukrainians do not have? The Russians may be loosing more than the Ukrainians but which one has the deeper pockets? The Russians can still pull out a lot of hardware and have 3X the population and will have no problem with using them up for the good of Mother Russia. The average age of the Ukrainian soldiers is 43. Think about that.
The F-16's were to give the Ukrainians more distance between the aircraft from Russia. That may have been the case previously but the Russians seemed to now have longer radar capabilities and can use their 300 and 400 missile systems and hit the F-16's. The ATACMS do hit farther but unless the Ukrainians are given the green light to hit inside Russia the Russian aircraft only need to sit over the border.
The big problem coming up is the winter, do you think Russia will be sending 30-40 drones a day or 300? Will they be sending a barrage of missiles as Hamas had?
printer
Well-Known Member
Ukraine Must Prepare for a Hard Winter
The lack of a breakthrough in Ukraine’s summer offensive and the shift in materiel advantage mean that Kyiv must fight carefully if it is to retain the initiative.
Despite the determined efforts of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), five months of offensive operations have not breached Russia’s defence lines in Zaporizhzhia. Ukraine retains some options to make Russian dispositions uncomfortable, but it is highly unlikely that there will be a breakthrough towards Tokmak this year unless Russian forces decide to withdraw. The Ukrainians now face a difficult set of competing imperatives: to maintain pressure on the Russians while reconstituting their units for future offensive operations.
Attrition and Initiative
Both Russia and Ukraine have struggled to generate offensive combat power in 2023. The heavy attrition of experienced junior officers and trained field-grade staff has limited the scale at which offensive action can be synchronised. Combined with terrain that contains fighting and the canalising effect of dense minefields, Ukrainian forces have been restricted to company-scale operations. When they have expanded the scale of operations, Ukrainian forces have found that they lose synchronisation with their supporting arms. Russia has similarly struggled to synchronise and coordinate larger-scale activities, but this has not prevented it from attempting them, at great cost in personnel and materiel.
For both sides, the ability to expand the scale at which they can operate effectively is constrained by training opportunities. Ukrainian units – committed to the front – struggle to be pulled far enough from the Russians to train at larger scale. Russia, meanwhile, is having to commit many of its replacement troops to keep up the strength of its units at the front because of its high rate of casualties. So long as this high casualty rate can be maintained, therefore, it becomes possible to suppress Russia’s ability to train sufficient new troops to the standard needed to effectively conduct offensive action.
If sustaining a high casualty rate suppresses Russia’s ability to regain the initiative, the question becomes whether Ukraine and its international partners can refine the training pipeline – better connecting training inside and outside of Ukraine – to enable Ukraine to exploit the opportunity in the spring. This is complicated by the need to keep up the pressure on Russian forces.
The Materiel Balance
Ukraine will face further challenges because of the shifting balance of materiel advantage. Over the summer Ukraine gained fires superiority for the first time, delivering more rounds per day onto Russian positions than came back in many sectors. This was critical to the progress made, but saw an ammunition consumption rate above 200,000 rounds per month.
Sufficient ammunition to sustain this rate of fire is not going to be forthcoming as NATO stockpiles deplete, and production rates for ammunition remain too low to meet this level of demand. On the Russian side, by comparison, production has turned a corner. Not only is Russian domestic ammunition production rising rapidly, but new ammunition production is being supplied from Iran, North Korea and other states. Bottlenecks in spare barrels and other critical parts will prevent Russia from establishing fires dominance for the next quarter, while NATO production should increase later in 2024, but for a while Ukraine faces the challenge of maintaining Russian attrition without an abundance of artillery.
Another challenge lies in air defence. The one plausible path towards Russia gaining a decisive advantage on the battlefield is if its aerospace forces are able to begin bombing from medium altitude, significantly increasing the accuracy of their strikes. To do this, they would need to denude Ukraine of its air defences. In this light, Russia’s impending strikes on Ukrainian critical national infrastructure remain a strategic threat. If Russia can destroy the ability to pump water in Ukraine’s cities during periods of cold temperature, pipes will burst, potentially rendering urban areas uninhabitable. Thus, the missiles must be intercepted – but interceptors are a scarce commodity.
For Russia, the supply of strike munitions is increasing. In October 2022 Russia was producing approximately 40 long-range missiles a month. Now it is producing over 100 a month, and this is supplemented by large numbers of Geran-2 UAVs. Furthermore, on 18 October, UN Security Council
restrictions on Iran’s missile programme lapsed. Russia has been pushing for Iran to supply it with missiles after that date, with an expectation that this will provide a large supply of missiles in the winter. NATO’s ability to expand the production of interceptors and radar for air defences is therefore critical.
Keeping Russia Unbalanced
Despite these threats, Ukraine has options for continuing to cause Russia’s position in southern Ukraine to deteriorate. Long-range strikes using ATACMS destroyed Electronic Warfare helicopters that had been important for protecting Russian forces from a range of effects. Carefully orchestrated attacks on Russian air defences are also making a range of softer targets more vulnerable. Once these gaps open, Ukraine can maximise the efficiency of the limited stocks of GMLRS it possesses to destroy and disrupt Russian logistics.
The winter once again poses an opportunity to maximise Russian losses. If Russian troops are drawn into the defence along a wide front, with Ukrainian troops pushing into opportunities rather than trying to break through defended areas, then Russian forces will be outside, getting wet and cold. If targeted strikes can degrade their logistics, then the limited training and fieldcraft of Russian forces can maximise climactic injuries. It is notable that Russian casualties last winter were exceedingly high, even when Russia had fires superiority.
Further activity in the Black Sea is also important. Firstly, expanding the threat to the Crimean Peninsula spreads out increasingly threatened and scarce defensive systems like the S-400. Secondly, the progressive erosion of the Black Sea Fleet’s freedom of manoeuvre helps to set the conditions for the isolation of Crimea in 2024. While these conditions can be created, however, they are all dependent upon the AFU being able to reconstitute. With Washington embroiled in political dysfunction, the assurances needed to plan for 2024 will increasingly fall on European capitals. Thus, for Ukraine’s international partners, the task of creating the conditions for a successful campaign in 2024 must be committed to today.
rusi.org
The lack of a breakthrough in Ukraine’s summer offensive and the shift in materiel advantage mean that Kyiv must fight carefully if it is to retain the initiative.
Despite the determined efforts of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), five months of offensive operations have not breached Russia’s defence lines in Zaporizhzhia. Ukraine retains some options to make Russian dispositions uncomfortable, but it is highly unlikely that there will be a breakthrough towards Tokmak this year unless Russian forces decide to withdraw. The Ukrainians now face a difficult set of competing imperatives: to maintain pressure on the Russians while reconstituting their units for future offensive operations.
Attrition and Initiative
Both Russia and Ukraine have struggled to generate offensive combat power in 2023. The heavy attrition of experienced junior officers and trained field-grade staff has limited the scale at which offensive action can be synchronised. Combined with terrain that contains fighting and the canalising effect of dense minefields, Ukrainian forces have been restricted to company-scale operations. When they have expanded the scale of operations, Ukrainian forces have found that they lose synchronisation with their supporting arms. Russia has similarly struggled to synchronise and coordinate larger-scale activities, but this has not prevented it from attempting them, at great cost in personnel and materiel.
For both sides, the ability to expand the scale at which they can operate effectively is constrained by training opportunities. Ukrainian units – committed to the front – struggle to be pulled far enough from the Russians to train at larger scale. Russia, meanwhile, is having to commit many of its replacement troops to keep up the strength of its units at the front because of its high rate of casualties. So long as this high casualty rate can be maintained, therefore, it becomes possible to suppress Russia’s ability to train sufficient new troops to the standard needed to effectively conduct offensive action.
If sustaining a high casualty rate suppresses Russia’s ability to regain the initiative, the question becomes whether Ukraine and its international partners can refine the training pipeline – better connecting training inside and outside of Ukraine – to enable Ukraine to exploit the opportunity in the spring. This is complicated by the need to keep up the pressure on Russian forces.
During the winter of 2022–3, much of the front saw intense skirmishing, but only limited Ukrainian attempts to significantly alter the line of control. The lack of a threat of offensive action by the AFU allowed Russia to build three extensive defence lines with mines, trenches and obstacles, which made Ukraine’s offensive operations this summer an order of magnitude more difficult. If Ukraine does not continue to pressure the Russian line in the winter, the risk is that these defence lines are expanded. Thus, Kyiv must balance reconstitution with a need to keep up pressure on Russian forces.
The Materiel Balance
Ukraine will face further challenges because of the shifting balance of materiel advantage. Over the summer Ukraine gained fires superiority for the first time, delivering more rounds per day onto Russian positions than came back in many sectors. This was critical to the progress made, but saw an ammunition consumption rate above 200,000 rounds per month.
Sufficient ammunition to sustain this rate of fire is not going to be forthcoming as NATO stockpiles deplete, and production rates for ammunition remain too low to meet this level of demand. On the Russian side, by comparison, production has turned a corner. Not only is Russian domestic ammunition production rising rapidly, but new ammunition production is being supplied from Iran, North Korea and other states. Bottlenecks in spare barrels and other critical parts will prevent Russia from establishing fires dominance for the next quarter, while NATO production should increase later in 2024, but for a while Ukraine faces the challenge of maintaining Russian attrition without an abundance of artillery.
Another challenge lies in air defence. The one plausible path towards Russia gaining a decisive advantage on the battlefield is if its aerospace forces are able to begin bombing from medium altitude, significantly increasing the accuracy of their strikes. To do this, they would need to denude Ukraine of its air defences. In this light, Russia’s impending strikes on Ukrainian critical national infrastructure remain a strategic threat. If Russia can destroy the ability to pump water in Ukraine’s cities during periods of cold temperature, pipes will burst, potentially rendering urban areas uninhabitable. Thus, the missiles must be intercepted – but interceptors are a scarce commodity.
For Russia, the supply of strike munitions is increasing. In October 2022 Russia was producing approximately 40 long-range missiles a month. Now it is producing over 100 a month, and this is supplemented by large numbers of Geran-2 UAVs. Furthermore, on 18 October, UN Security Council
restrictions on Iran’s missile programme lapsed. Russia has been pushing for Iran to supply it with missiles after that date, with an expectation that this will provide a large supply of missiles in the winter. NATO’s ability to expand the production of interceptors and radar for air defences is therefore critical.
Keeping Russia Unbalanced
Despite these threats, Ukraine has options for continuing to cause Russia’s position in southern Ukraine to deteriorate. Long-range strikes using ATACMS destroyed Electronic Warfare helicopters that had been important for protecting Russian forces from a range of effects. Carefully orchestrated attacks on Russian air defences are also making a range of softer targets more vulnerable. Once these gaps open, Ukraine can maximise the efficiency of the limited stocks of GMLRS it possesses to destroy and disrupt Russian logistics.
At the same time, if a massed breakthrough is looking less likely, Ukraine can exploit the width of the front to keep Russian forces in the field as the weather deteriorates. Recent attacks across the Dnipro, for example, expand the frontage that Russian troops must defend, reducing the number of forces that can be pulled back and trained or reconstituted. Actions that make progress where the Russians have left themselves vulnerable can be rapidly exploited. Russian commanders cannot, therefore, simply trade space on their flanks.
The winter once again poses an opportunity to maximise Russian losses. If Russian troops are drawn into the defence along a wide front, with Ukrainian troops pushing into opportunities rather than trying to break through defended areas, then Russian forces will be outside, getting wet and cold. If targeted strikes can degrade their logistics, then the limited training and fieldcraft of Russian forces can maximise climactic injuries. It is notable that Russian casualties last winter were exceedingly high, even when Russia had fires superiority.
Further activity in the Black Sea is also important. Firstly, expanding the threat to the Crimean Peninsula spreads out increasingly threatened and scarce defensive systems like the S-400. Secondly, the progressive erosion of the Black Sea Fleet’s freedom of manoeuvre helps to set the conditions for the isolation of Crimea in 2024. While these conditions can be created, however, they are all dependent upon the AFU being able to reconstitute. With Washington embroiled in political dysfunction, the assurances needed to plan for 2024 will increasingly fall on European capitals. Thus, for Ukraine’s international partners, the task of creating the conditions for a successful campaign in 2024 must be committed to today.
Ukraine Must Prepare for a Hard Winter
The lack of a breakthrough in Ukraine’s summer offensive and the shift in materiel advantage mean that Kyiv must fight carefully if it is to retain the initiative.
rusi.org
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
The Ukrainians are getting a steady supply of shells, they could use more though, but have enough for now and can last until more supplies arrive. As for population Russia is already had force generation problems and I figure it's more about equipment and supplies than warm bodies. The average age of a Ukrainian soldier might be 43, but they are country of 40 million that has barely scratched the surface for available manpower, I doubt they lost 100K KIA yet.
One of the reasons for delaying F16s was to make the place safe for them and that is what I figure the ATACMS are for with longer range ones coming. As for drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, they tried that before and failed when they were stronger and Ukraine less prepared. They already went through that before and have lots of backup generators in country and more will arrive and I'm sure power transformers were ordered a year ago by several countries. This time it could be different with Ukraine striking back in kind with drones and I don't think the Russians will be ready for it in terms of defense or replacements.
War is a stupid business however, but I think US support will continue and the Magats in the house defeated. Russia is having plenty of problems on a lot of fronts and back home too. The Ukrainian general spoke of a stalemate, but this could be to get more supplies or deceive the Russians about upcoming offensives. They are on the other side of the river south of Kherson and that must be causing trouble for the Russians. and they seem to have a lot of focus on hitting targets in Crimea, even after driving the Russian navy out.
I don't expect this to be smooth sailing all the way, but a lot of what we hear from the Ukrainians is they need still more stuff, this is true to a point, but they also want all they can get and will never say they have enough! I think Joe has a plan to destroy the Russian military and economy and no matter what happens in the 24 elections, the Russians will be finished in Ukraine by election day in America. Joe's reluctance has more to do with sucking Vlad in than being afraid of him IMO, his plan is to bleed him white. It is the best long-term security for Ukraine and when the Russians are finally driven out the war will likely end. I don't make the calls, but it is a theory of mine based on statements by Blinken and Austin earlier in the war, they only said it once at a news conference, after that, crickets. I think Joe told them to STFU after seeing that news conference.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
One gets the impression Germany is stepping up to the plate and are now resolved, they are all in it appears. Perhaps they want a buffer between them and the Russians or want them eliminated as a potential threat until they rebuild their own armed forces. Perhaps they want a piece of future Ukrainian resources since they have plenty of NG and oil to supply their industries, there minerals and labor is cheaper in Ukraine. It's not just America the Russians need to worry about, there are plenty of EU countries that are formidable adversaries to Russia, more so when allied. These places have a bigger stake in Ukrainian victory than America and won't abandon Ukraine, there is no way out of a long war for Russia except to leave Ukraine in defeat. Russian public opinion is strongly in favor of the war from some polling, so it's not just Vlad and his cronies anymore but a majority of the public, they just don't want to fight in it.
DIY-HP-LED
Well-Known Member
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges - Far from a Stalemate, Ukraine is Making Crimea Untenable for Russia to Defend.
Ben Hodges is a retired United States Army officer, who became commander of United States Army Europe in November 2014, and held that position for three years until retiring from the United States Army in January 2018. He was most recently a Senior Advisor to Human Rights First, until summer 2023, and serves as NATO Senior Mentor for Logistics. Until recently was the Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies, at the Centre for European Policy Analysis, specialising in NATO, the Transatlantic relationship and international security.